James Poulos writes about political news, focusing on our choices for liberty and our options for reform. He's a columnist at The Daily Beast, the host of the Free Radicals podcast, and the frontman of a band called Black Hi-Lighter.

Can Europe Survive a Civil War in Greece?

We all remember the upshot last time communists and fascists had to share a parliament, right? Conditions in Greece today are beginning to take on the eerie cast of Weimar Germany in its final years. It’s important to emphasize that what went wrong in Weimar had less to do with racial animosity or even economic meltdown, and more to do with a crisis of nationalism. With the Second Reich destroyed, what was Germany? What was it for? These existential questions are the same that face Greece, and the fresh electoral triumph of its far-left and far-right parties repeats the pattern of competing answers first put on display in ’20s and ’30s Germany.

Almost no one in Europe intuited that military action at that early stage could have prevented the cataclysm of the Second World War and the Holocaust. The open wounds of the First World War helped guarantee that. But now, the last war in Europe was confined to the former Yugoslavia, and the lessons of the past may sound a clearer warning. Greece’s problem is primarily political, not economic. With European politics and economics so closely knit together, however, chaos in Greece poses a double threat: first, to the peace and security of the continent; second, to the survival of the Euro and the EU itself. That threat will become much more than a threat if Greece slips into civil war. Though it’s too early to interpret that dire eventuality as a certainty, the West can’t plan for the worst too soon.

The tinderbox in Greece is devilishly simple: the military. Unlike most countries in Europe, Greece has an outsized military budget, and the armed forces to match. Where Spaniards, for instance, have little reason to worry that militarism will flow in as prosperity and opportunity ebb, Greeks have every reason to look to the military as a solution for the economic and political problems that neither German eyeshades nor parliamentary negotiations seem able to solve. But there’s simply no geopolitical space for Greek aggression, which means there’s no room for the age-old political strategy of whipping up national unity by starting a war. The US, for instance will stop at nothing to prevent a Greco-Turkish war. An altercation in Macedonia is conceivable, but Greek territorial aspirations have never reached farther north. Indeed, the real issue is that a civil war now appears far more likely in Greece than a war of aggression.

A Greek civil war, moreover, threatens the Euro and the EU more than any cross-border misadventure. The collapse of civil order is the specter that hangs over Europe’s constituent parts. Markets can survive and even thrive amidst nation-to-nation wars. Civil war in Greece will lay bare the full spectrum of questions Europe dreads facing most. Not only will a Greek meltdown touch off a media frenzy (Will Italy be next? Is Naziism back? Whither Hungary?). It will throw down a gauntlet before Europe. With market confidence and institutional legitimacy on the line, will the Europeans really stand idly by? Will they cross their fingers and hope for the best? Will Germany and France supply the Greek military, whomever’s in charge, with even more arms? Or will some European coalition of forces intervene, largely — if not entirely — without the benefit of American boots on the ground? (And don’t expect that American military technology will work wonders. The US is very good at taking out specific enemies from afar. It’s terrible at bringing order to chaos — as Libya, Pakistan, and Yemen show, just to name a few.)

Europe’s hand will be forced. The impulse will be to boot a warring Greece from the Euro, but even that drastic move will fail to establish a political or economic quarantine. German military intervention is an impossibility. Britons have no interest in repeating the debacle of the UK’s last Greek ordeal, which drove them to the edge of bankruptcy. Europe will never permit Russia or Turkey to take the lead on a Greek intervention.

Who then? There is only France. Can anyone envision Hollande sending the tricolor to Athens — even in the name of left solidarity?

The state of play in Europe is straightforward. Greece is very likely to become a failed state. Over the next five years, civil war is probable. The brute fact is that Greece has not succeeded in demonstrating that it can and should exist as a sovereign political entity. European anxiety, international markets, and the force of media-fueled public opinion ensure that neither the Euro nor the EU can survive an unanswered Greek implosion. And the only country in Europe that can lead a coalition capable of imposing order on the chaos to come is now led by a man for whom such leadership is deliriously out of character.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Comments

You made some excellent points. I’d like to point out that seeing the centre of a democracy collapsing, and the field taken over by the far right and the far left, is a very worrying warning symptom. Some previous examples of this happening don’t just include Weimar Germany, but Spain before the civil war, and Italy before the rise of Mussolini. The precedents don’t look good, and suggest that dictatorship or civil war starting anywhere between the next six months to 3 years is quite likely.

The Greek voters, in seeking a democratic solution to their problems have refused to support a government that subjects them to the unreasonable pain and humiliation suffered at the hands of the Troika. They have upset the financial markets yet again. According to your analysis this makes Greece a “failed state” that does not “deserve” to be a sovereign entity and faces “civil war”. Having ruled out a solution imposed from outside Greece, you seem to be inviting action by the Greek military. What a grim and alarming thesis! Try taking a cold shower before writing your next piece.

Total rubbish, why dont you check the correlation between nationalist fervour and economic conditions and study the historic incidences. Your assesment around the right of self determination is interesting too, im sure similar arguments were used by Colonial armies and eugenicists in the past to help lesser people and societies (dont worry though James Im sure such generalisations of the ability of Greeks to be self reliant do not apply to your good self). The fact that you are paid to deliver this kind of”contribution”can only mean that the US economy is functioning alot better than what your news services are reporting. This is bile, what is worse is that your exposure means that your opinions do real harm. Your an evil little hack and your news service should show better judgement in who it employs.

The author makes the mistake of equating the “Far Right” with fascists. Fascists are Socialists or totalitarian socialists (See Hugo Chavez). They may be to the so-called right of communists but are in no way connected to capitalists and are to the far left of capitalists. In this country they are described as Far-Right because the educational establishment wants to paint the right as similar to Nazi Germany (Nazi=the National Socialist Party of Germany). Nazi Germany was a Leftist /Socialist movement much like what is happening in the U.S. today. The pattern of Demonize-Capitalize-Nationalize is very apparent with this administration. If we don’t wake up soon and smell the coffee a civil war will be brewing here soon!

I have just returned from Greece where I was present during the May 6th elections. While the article references the civil war and the horrors that accompanied it throughout post WWII Greece, it seems to exude an inevitable return to the same, based on the current similar state of political polarization.

That such speculation has historical support may be true, but in talking to people of a broad spectrum of social backgrounds, I discovered that much of this polarity is simply skewed by many people who actually believe in a political middle ground, turning away from the status quo, in a quest to break from leaders, whose parties are rooted in fraudulent activities.

The worst possible thing for this economy, which at first saw it’s living standards rise as members of the EU, and now have seen its cost of living rise even further, is to lose it’s huge income flows from tourism. To that end we should all be praying that the powers that be in Greece, no matter how diverse, will use that great system of government that they gave the world in the first place – democracy, to apply peaceful and caring solutions for the people.

More so, may this nation that early on, received the Christian Gospel and in whose language, the first New Testament was written, be blessed with a desire for transparency in good government, and be ruled by those, whose desire is equally as much to serve.

An article totally out of reality, written just to make propaganda. There is no possibility to see things like that. All these uneducated silly journalists keep saying “horriffying” like dictatorship, civil wars etc since 2009, but finally theyare proved wrong by the reality and are humiliated and untrustful.

“Where Spaniards, for instance, have little reason to worry that militarism will flow in as prosperity and opportunity ebb, Greeks have every reason to look to the military as a solution for the economic and political problems that neither German eyeshades nor parliamentary negotiations seem able to solve.”

Would you like to explain it more to us? Why Greece and not Spain? You put an opinion without supporting it with logical arguments……

I have just moved to Greece – I live out of Athens near Nafplion. I see a normal functioning counrty – the oranges are going to market – Argos has a thriving fish and vegetable market – people are driving around in new pick-up jeeps, grandads are whizzing around on scooters. This article is a lie. I agree that the country has problems, political problems, there is an silly amount of grafitti – especially on road signs. But Greece is not a country on the verge of civil war – it’s a country that is forcing the world to examine it’s current economic policies. This is the result of out of control market forces – and I hope that the government, not only of Greece but of America, and Britain take responsibility for controlling the behaviour of international banks, making them accountable for their behaviour, thereby meaning that the hardship of the poorest people in Greece will not have been in vain. Rubbish journalism. Really, go back to college.